My son Channing, the grinning eight year-old to the left, has too much homework. He attends one of the best schools in the state and they send him home every night with what the teachers say is one hour of homework but it looks like two hours to me. And since Channing would really rather be fishing or terrorizing his little brothers those two hours regularly turn into three hours or more. This is not only too much homework, it hurts rather than helps. It seems indicative of an educational system that’s out of control.

Several years ago I gave a speech about technology to the Texas Library Association’s big annual meeting. After the speech I was talking with a pair of elementary school librarians. Channing was back then just going off to pre-school so homework was the last thing on my mind but they brought it up. “The best thing you can do for your kids,” they said, “is to not allow them to do homework until the third grade.”

I wish I had followed their advice. I wish I had taken a firm stance and told the school not to expect any homework because it wouldn’t be coming, at least not for a couple years. You can do that, you know. But of course I wimped-out.

American education, perhaps because of the No Child Left Behind Act, has become a testing nightmare. Metrics are everything and much of the curriculum is now intended not to educate but rather to pass the damned tests. It is precisely analogous to what I discovered thirty years ago investigating the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, where reactor operators were trained to pass the operator test, not to actually operate the reactor. When things went wrong — when they went beyond the scripted scenarios — the operators had no idea what was happening inside that containment. Channing’s curriculum, too, tends to be 100 miles wide and an inch deep.

We’re being told our kids lack critical thinking skills, yet this curriculum doesn’t seem to teach those skills, at least not that I have seen.

Worse still, most of the homework is busywork. It teaches nothing. Worst of all, our child-centric culture has parents digging-in with their kids to do that homework, wasting all of our time and ultimately pitting adult against adult as surrogates for their exhausted kids.

What’s wrong with this picture? Everything.

When I was Channing’s age, 50 years ago, my parents’ attitude was one of benign neglect. They were busy doing whatever parents did back then (drinking and smoking cigarettes, mainly), but it sure didn’t include helping me with my homework. Somehow my siblings and I survived just fine. Yet today we’re supposedly faced with plummeting test scores and surging dropout rates despite whole generations of parents slaving away every night on homework. What gives?

Well one thing that gives is something I learned during my many years experiencing droughts in California: public officials don’t like good news, seeing it as un-motivating. If we had a dry year it was bad, they’d explain, because there wouldn’t be enough snowmelt, the reservoirs would be down but, most importantly, the forests and grasslands would be tinder-dry, increasing the danger of forest and wild fires. But if we had the occasional rainy year their line changed. Now the reservoirs were full (though that could change in a moment so don’t take any extra showers) but the extra snowmelt meant extra forest and grassland growth creating more combustible material making forest and wild fires even more likely. No matter what happened it was bad according to these guys because they didn’t want to ever give up the chance to preach down to us. They were determined to remove whatever joy there was in life.

Same thing in education. We aren’t as good as we used to be and that’s going to have a major impact on, well, everything. So the answer is always more resources, more testing, more consultants. Oh but no more art or music — those are too expensive.

Frankly I’m not sure any longer exactly what is the truth. Things might be getting better or worse, I don’t know. But I know I don’t generally trust the idiots who are telling me what to worry about.

General Motors, having over the last half dozen years shed more than 200,000 skilled workers, this week offered buy-outs to thousands more. If we’re in such trouble in terms of educating our people, how can GM afford to do that? Robots, we’re told. Robots will build your Camaro.

What we’re talking about here is educating the masses, not keeping Silicon Valley globally competitive. The distinction between those two concepts is lost on a lot of folks but I have been pointing out for the last 20 years that most of the top technical work comes from an incredibly small number of people. Xerox PARC changed the world, remember, in 3-4 years with fewer than 100 people, defining back in 1973 pretty much our computing world of today. The Bob Metcalfes and John Warnocks aren’t affected by any of this educational policy BS. They’d rise to the top in any culture or any time. The Metcalfes and Warnocks of today are already hard at work, not stuck behind some standardized test that’s keeping them from their destinies.

No, it’s the intellectual middle class — you and me — we’re talking about. Wait, that’s not true: you are really smart, so that means just me we’re talking about, and my goofy sons. How do we optimize our educational system to encourage normal kids to achieve greatness?

Not through all this God-damned homework.

German students have plenty of homework, too, and they go to school an average of 220 days per year to our 183. German kids go to school on Saturday.(Not since the 1980s, commenters from Germany report, below. I went six days as a schoolboy in England, and that apparently ended for the most part in the 80’s too) That should prove the point, right? Because nobody is saying the Germans are falling behind. Heck, they are the economic powerhouse of Europe.

But wait a minute. School in Germany starts at 8AM and ends each day at noon1PM. Even the high schools follow that schedule. German schools don’t serve lunch because the kids have all gone home, I suppose to do their homework. But if you get home at 12:30 1:30 there is plenty of time for homework, eh?

Channing will spend this year 1,372 hours in school not counting basketball practice or chess club while the average German third-grader will spend 880 1100 hours in school.

What’s the answer? I don’t know. I don’t know if we are really falling behind or not, since it isn’t clear who I can even trust to tell the truth. Are we in a drought or a flood, who knows? All I know for sure is whatever the true situation, we aren’t supposed to feel good about it, no way.

158 Comments

Jerry
December 14, 2010 at 11:29 pm

Agreed Bob!

Isn’t public-school education just a programming tool by those in power? With a bit of real education tossed in to make you think it’s not?

School ought to amplify the wonder of discovery and learning, but that would require a completely different perspective on the parts of administrators, principals, and teachers, not to mention the colleges and universities that “prepare” the teachers. There’s a whole economic subsystem there that does not want change.

John Taylor Gatto is a good read for those interested in education.

Jeff
December 15, 2010 at 5:59 am

I second Jerry’s recommendation of John Taylor Gatto. Reading his resignation letter, printed in the Wall Street Journal, give you a taste of where he is coming from.

Well, while I know that you’re joking, the ESL programs are indeed bad news. The only way I’ve ever found to properly learn a language is via immersion. Propping up lessons with parallel classes in Spanish isn’t doing a favor for anyone except for all those Spanish majors in college.

There is something to this argument before everyone calls this guy all the PC names.
We have “bi lingual” schools. Funny, there are not any Mandarin or Hindi bi-lingual schools. They are only for elementary.
It is well known that humans can learn language easily from 2-7 years old. So the system gives the kids a crutch and reason not to learn. Then drops them into middle school and pulls the crutch. It makes no sense.

Lorenzo
December 15, 2010 at 10:36 am

You just don’t live in the right part of the country for it, I guess. When I lived in California, I was aware of bilingual schools for French, Spanish, Mandarin, Hebrew, and Vietnamese. We have a Mandarin bilingual school near my house in Washington state.

The bilingual sword has two edges. Bilingual children generally do better in school. And any first generation child of immigrants can tell you that if you don’t need to use it, you lose it.

Gernot Poener
December 14, 2010 at 11:51 pm

That’s funny because over here, many people, especially politicans believe that Germany is falling behind in education (just google for the term “PISA study” – it’s all about test and metrics and stuff). And there are many people (not me) who believe sending our kids to school all day long is THE solution to many of our problems. Go figure.

I also believe there aren’t many places left where you go on saturdays, When I was a kid in the former GDR though, that was common,

For the older children, school usually ends at 2-3pm, 12:30 would be an exception,

Great article, Bob, mainly because you said what most of us really know – that is, we really don’t know what the answer is. Unfortunately there will end up being a lot of libertarian leaning people who will jump on here and claim it is the Dept of Ed.’s fault and yadda yadda yadda. And that’s too bad, because the people who are saying such things don’t actually know, either, and the more confident they are in saying it, the less they actually know.

I don’t know what the answer is, but all I know is that my 3rd and 4th grader seem to be doing, as you indicate, too much G.D. homework, and I’m not sure what it is really doing for them.

When my boy was in kindergarden, near the end of the year we decided to go on a Disney cruise and were going to be gone two weeks. The school sent us, that’s right, HOMEWORK for him, and even tried to hint that he might not get promoted to first grade due to this absence. This was friggin’ kindergarden for crying out loud.

I really worry about education in the US, not because of a fear we are “falling behind”, but because it doesn’t seem like we are actually preparing kids for things. We have a nation of 300+ million people. We all can’t work in office jobs. Somebody has to actually build stuff, know how it works, and maintain it. Where are the trade schools? Why are we trying to shove every kid into college to get a 4 year degree? It’s bad for those kids who shouldn’t do it, bad for the kids who should do it (as they are in overcrowded lectures with less than qualified staffs), and there are not enough jobs to be filled with those leaving the schools for those types of jobs anyway!

But for absolute sure, we need to stop all this crazy testing. It is out of control.

When I was a third grader, or elementary student in general, we NEVER had homework. The only time I can recall having homework was when we had a paper that we had to do in sixth grade, which was intended to be our first ‘real research paper’. I can’t remember if we had a sort of study hall in which to do it or not. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I never had problem with homework until about 10th grade, in which case it was either the dreaded math subject or just plain ole procrastination. It is appalling that they would give kids any kind of homework before grade 3 or 4 for any reason.

The fact that they are given anything more than 15 or 20 minutes of review work is just unproductive. They should be given time to expand their horizons to new sports and activities. The fact that your son is involved in the chess club is somewhat surprising – most 8 year olds aren’t interested in such a thing, but given a man such as yourself, I can understand why he is.

It would seem pointless to me to assign any homework when the majority of kids don’t do it at all. The teachers these days are so lenient on kids turning in homework that they themselves don’t want to look bad when the bulk of their students are blowing off their assignments. Where I live, this would not be a reason to deal out pink slips, but I know in some parts of the country, student success is a direct determinant of ones’ job.

As far as German education goes…I must disagree with your generalization that they go to school on Saturday. I attended 2 schools in very different parts of the nation and neither of them even favored that notion. It is true that they get out much earlier and go to school much fewer hours than we do (out by 1-2, attending 4 or 5 hours per day), but they are much more productive hours. Double periods (2 hours long) are common and this improves productivity by a drastic amount. They can concentrate on one or two or three subjects a day, rather than 8 when you have 1 hour periods all day. Given the fact that I was there for about 6 months, I think I would rather have a bit longer school day and in exchange get a longer summer. The school I went to barely got 6 weeks vacation. Although I wouldn’t want to have as long a school day as we have here.

I would be in favor of beginning the school day earlier. In earlier, out earlier. If school started by 7 and went for fewer hours, kids could be home by 1 to pursue their activites and do their homework, with plenty of time left for the family. This, however, would never work because 95% of the nation would be against this idea.

I would like to get your input on Duff’s comment about immigrant children dragging the rest down. Do you agree? I personally think that this is a hindrance, but one that can be overcome. Right now, i believe immigration is a tough situation, and even if it is stopped, there is still an astonishing amount of immigrants we still have to take into consideration. Personally I think that many of my mexican neighbors are working hard to make it, just like everyone else. I grew up with some immigrants in my graduating class and we never thought of them as enemies, just as our friends.

On an unrelated note, the holidays are approaching, did you have problems printing your christmas cards this year? Or have you abandoned the tradition now that the kids are getting a little older?

Best wishes for your Holiday and New Year.

MAtt
December 15, 2010 at 7:31 am

In my part of the USA school starts plenty early- earlier now than twenty years ago for some kids. My neighbor’s kid is picked up for either high school or junior high at 6:30. The next wave is 7:30, and the youngest kids 8:30 (I think for half-day kindergarten).

I agree about the homework, but what do you expect from a society marketing “toy” laptops for “toddlers on the go?” We plant the seed early. A coworker has a daughter in three sports plus high-level academics. They travel on the weekend for sports; she is up until 9 or ten doing homework each night. Maybe she’ll be a CEO or pro athlete when she is 25. And maybe she will have a heart attack when she is 35.

The real trick to all this is that the outcome won’t be known until it is too late. We’ll end up with a generation of sociopath over-achievers who look at the the elderly – us – as a commodity, and – BOOM! – Logan’s Run. Or we’ll have a generation of minimally employed underachievers. Or maybe it’s just that every generation laments the destruction of society and the loss of something or other that they had when they were a kid, blah blah blah.

Keir Finlow-Bates
December 15, 2010 at 12:35 am

In Finland children don’t start school until they are seven. PISA (the Program for International Student Assessment) has placed Finland at the top or in second place internationally for at least the last five years. Finnish kids rarely get more than half an hour or an hour of home work in high school (and on some nights there’s no homework at all). There is no standardized testing. Even more than Germany, I think this shows the way.

The UK seems to have the same approach that you describe for the US – a rigid curriculum, standardized testing with firm metrics and targets, and a blatant disregard for “non productive” subjects that require creativity. And like the US, the UK is finding itself sliding down the international tables.

Ulf
December 15, 2010 at 12:47 am

Having gone through the German school system, it’s a bit different than you describe, although the big picture is accurate.

School on Saturday has been phased out ever since the 80s. There may be schools left that still do it, but they’d be few and far in between at this time.

Many schools have extended their hours into the afternoon (and are now offering lunch) in order to accommodate two working parents. That trend is strongly on the up. Some of the extra time in the afternoon might be used for homework, though.

So basically all this NEW work is no different than what I went through (as far as I can tell). Yes it wasn’t fun, but was damn good prep for college.

Maybe back then the testing wasn’t the be all end all, but it was still important. I remember taking practices tests 1 or 2 weeks before the real thing and having extra prep work in class.

“Why are we trying to shove every kid into college to get a 4 year degree?”

No one is expecting that (heck they won’t even all get a HS diploma), but unless you want to separate kids from day 1 in either the college prep track or the McD’s track, then I’d rather have everyone on the college prep track. Obviously not everyone is going to make it, but the students that take advantage of it will be better off. Going to college and realizing your high school didn’t prepare you is just going to make it that much more difficult to get your degree.

Cris E
December 15, 2010 at 10:13 am

Many of your points are valid, but the issue is that we’re talking about much younger kids. Homework, sometimes in numbing quantities, may not be new, but seeing it reach all the way down to second grade is certainly a change.

Ronc
December 15, 2010 at 3:32 pm

“Yes it wasn’t fun, but was damn good prep for college.” Absolutely right. One point that Bob and most other posters miss is that you can’t measure homework in hours. Some people are smarter than others. The smartest kids will finish it correctly in an hour, while it will take me three.

Casey
December 15, 2010 at 2:03 am

“Somebody has to actually build stuff, know how it works, and maintain it. Where are the trade schools?”

This is the problem with that statement. Building stuff has been commoditized except for some industries like aerospace and micro electronics. A lot of these jobs will never come back to the US. This fact has reduced the prices of many items to the point where they are disposable, and/or not even serviceable. For example, computers, cell phones, cameras, maybe even cars to a degree. These facts make the “trade” market much much smaller and more competative.

It is not the job of the public school system to target this niche area. School is for kids who are 10 to 15 years away from a full time job. Therefore it is more important to develop intelligence, part of that involves learning facts, reading, etc. Critical thinking is also important, but only with a foundation of knowledge (language, math, science, history)

Introducing a trade skill at an early stage is just counter productive. I would argue that grade school should not be concerned with providing a child with an income later in life, but to prepare a person to be member of a community and nation. If not, we will have cities full of skilled idiots, I’d rather have a bunch of unemployed art and lit majors.

Good point. i was perhaps over-generalizing to the elementary school set when in reality I meant to target the high-school set. Building and servicing things isn’t about electronics… it’s about things like roads, bridges, buildings, HVAC, automotive, airlines, lighting, energy delivery, etc.

While I hate to say it in such a “crude” way, there is the statement “the world needs ditch diggers, too”, and it is accurate.

You are right that we *do* need to teach our young kids ways to be intelligent, but I think Bob’s point is that the homework that is being assigned is not doing that – it is taking up all their time, it is busy work, and parents are actually doing a large part of it in terms of helping.

Teaching young kids how to build things – think of a science class where you build simple circuits that light up lights or make beeps or something, is a way to spur intelligence.

Additionally, my son is smart, but the way his brain works is such that writing things, doing heavy reading, etc. is difficult, thus the 2 hours of homework become 5 hours of homework, and he gets frustrated. However, put him in front of something he can build and manipulate with his hands, and he just excels. Those kinds of skills should be valued by our society, but it’s not – let’s just “ship those jobs to China”. I’m sorry, as I said before, this country has 300+ million people, we all can’t work in cubicles doing IT type work.

Cris E
December 15, 2010 at 10:53 am

I was about to write this very post until I thought to refresh and make sure no one else had.

Ronc
December 15, 2010 at 3:40 pm

“Critical thinking is also important, but only with a foundation of knowledge (language, math, science, history)”…Well said. The only advantage we have over animals is our ability to communicate and pass the knowlege of past generations on to future generations.

One more thing to note about the German school system is that it is systematically corrupted. Schooling is a state, not a nation-wide business, and in Bavaria grammar school recently was shortened by a year (from nine to eight) while retaining the stuff (we call it Schulstoff) to be taught. Less time for play, more stress, same boring routines. I was a smart and easily bored kid, and that was not a good combination for our school system of the 70s and 80s.

My daughter, who is a year old now, will go to a private school if the trend continues to make school not about acquiring knowledge but about passing tests and being a good drone. (We’re turning our Universities into drone factories as well at the moment. How ironic that as we have longer lifespans than ever, we are cutting shorter and shorter the “unproductive” phase of learning and broadening one’s horizon.)

Computers and the Internet should have by now revolutionized the way we deal with knowledge and learning, both the how and what. Instead we’re regressing.

Please, please listen to Sir Ken Robinson’s thoughts and ideas about modern (industrialised) education. He often describes the concept of ‘academic inflation’ being the goal of current curriculums and that is often the driving force away from the creative aspects of education and toward more testing and more homework. You can find him at ted.com.

Spot on. I’m afraid this is one of my (many) hobby-horses! Your description of school/homework in the present could easily be the United Kingdom. During the last 30 years (I’m your age) I have been baffled by education strategy in the UK. Thatcher started the nonsense by getting her ministers to suggest that UK education should be more like the US. Everybody went, “Uh?” because at that time it was generally perceived, and stated, that child and teen education (at least) in the UK was ‘better’ than in the US. Then suddenly UK Gov started saying we must copy the US with all the testing and bureaucratic nonsense! Bizarre. Now look at the state UK education is in after years of messing it up by both parties. I had a history teacher nearly 50 years ago at school in Kent whose favourite saying was a paraphrase of a well-known biblical one: “Exams were made for Man, not Man for exams.” ( Howard Biggs, RIP.)

cschneid
December 15, 2010 at 5:14 am

Just as in business (and too often in government), where we get management instead of leadership, in schools we appear to be getting management instead of education.

Principles of mass production are not applicable in all situations. Misapplied, we lose craftsmanship in favor of uniformity. We measure in order to manage, instead of trying to produce the best we can; the measurement giving the illusion of “taking action.”

Applying mass production principles to education seems the worst sort of “take-action theater.”

Grace Hopper once said, “I think we have too much of this thing called management. No one ever managed troops into battle.” Or managed students to excel.

Mike
December 15, 2010 at 5:22 am

My son missed the last 4 months of 5th grade last year due to illness. Thank God the school passed him on up to 6th grade. They felt so bad for him that they didn’t require him to do any makeup work. Over the summer he finally got better. In the fall he started 6th grade (a middle school).

Now he’s a smart kid, but he isn’t exceptional. His first report card in 6th grade he got 4 A’s and 2 B’s. In elementary school he never got ‘grades’ (just an indication of “progress”), but it feels like he’s done better this year than ever.

Seems like there’s a lesson there – he missed nearly half of 5th grade and… didn’t suffer academically? Makes you wonder how important the work that they do (including homework) is…

Knowledge-Is-Light
December 15, 2010 at 5:25 am

Maybe if our schools would focus less on the football and basketball teams and take all of the money they are spending on those programs and facilities and put it back in to programs that actually mean something. It is now the norm for schools in this area of the country to have college class fields and arenas for theses teams. Yes, I appreciate the value that engaging in sports gives to children – my kids are involved. But the money we are dumping in to these programs is obscene.

Your comments on the “mile wide and inch deep” curriculum are very accurate. I’ve seen our school system shove aside valuable educational programs and the instructors volunteer that they’ve had to give up these programs to ensure that they can get the students prepped for the testing required by No Child Left Behind. My kids have way more homework than I had as a child, and I don’t think it is adding anything to their educational experience.

And on the same note – we as parents must also take responsibility. It is our job to set expectations and hold our kids accountable – this means that when Johnny or Suzy are acting up at school, the parents must hold the kids accountable at home. When I was in school, it would have been unacceptable for my parents to get a call from the school reporting some type of an issue – I knew that and made sure that it never happened. I hold my kids to the same standard. Too many parents take the attitude of “not my child”. Well, yes, it is your child disrupting the class and you either need to change their behavior or we won’t allow them back in school.

And now as I climb further up the soapbox, teachers must also be held accountable. Why is it that we continue to let teachers in the classroom who have clearly lost their ability to teach – simply because they have seniority. Why, when there are touch economic times, do we let go of some of the most passionate and respected teachers, simply because they don’t have seniority. When do we hold the teachers accountable for results.

Bobby
December 15, 2010 at 5:50 am

Not enough Dads in the home and way to many women in the schools. The feminization of our schools along with the absurd amount of political correctness has absolutely ruined our education system.

Pay scales are the issue for the percentage of women teachers. For most school systems, the pay scale for elementary is far below that of high schools and many households still count on the male parent being the primary wage earner. As a result, many children never have a male teacher before junior high or high school. As to the rest of your post, I would need to see some support for those notions before commenting.

l.a.guy
December 15, 2010 at 2:52 pm

I saw an interview a month or so ago in which Michael Milken made the point that one of the reasons for the decline in U.S. education was because until 70’s/80’s the best and brightest women had nowhere to go but into teaching. According to him, once the corporate world opened up to these women we were left with a comparatively mediocre group of teachers. I have no idea to what degree it’s true but I thought it was an interesting idea.

Ronc
December 16, 2010 at 2:07 pm

Not to mention the booming fast-food industry.

Scott
December 15, 2010 at 5:55 am

You have misunderstood the real goal of public school in the US. First of all the public schools are firmly in the control of the teachers unions. They state that their goal is the education of our children, but it is really the continuation of the system they have constructed.

The purpose of that system is to extract as much money as possible from the taxpayer and transfer it to their pockets. Since these unions and the left leaning politicians have a symbiotic (and parasitic) relationship it is in their best interest to prop up this system. Therefore, they want to have access to our children in order to influence their thinking about society and politics in a fashion that assures their continued existance.

It all boils down to this: The longer the school day, the more time they have to indoctrinate our kids. If you are sympathetic to left leaning causes then you don’t have any worries about this. If you aren’t then get your kids out of public schools.

Another Bob
December 15, 2010 at 5:59 am

All this complaining about testing is bogus. The test is life, itself. Life is a competition. I you’re not trained to succeed in life, you’ve failed the test. Also, testing is required to measure incremental success. You can’t move to the next level on until you know the supporting facts and ideas, otherwise you won’t understand the new ideas. So teaching to the test is a good, necessary thing. What’s really important is what the test is testing for.

Perhaps for a well written test, this has some merit. If the test is “a mile wide and an inch deep,” then you are preparing for a test that demands only that you have a very superficial knowledge about many things and no capacity for reason. The tests to which the schools are currently teaching seem to meet that description.

Well, “Another Bob”, I have some anecdotal evidence that what you are saying is not true… Granted, it’s only anecdotal, but I think it is very important given this discussion.

In college, when getting my engineering degree, I decided to spend much more time doing lab work (designing circuits, programming, etc.) than doing the studying (i.e. homework) of what the books said and what the teachers said.

From a GPA standpoint, that was backwards. The tests would amount to 70-80% of the grade, and the labs would thus be 20-30% of the grade.

However, I *learned* from doing the labs. “Oh, this works, and this doesn’t”. Spending so much time in the labs though, meant less time for studying, and as such, a lower GPA. However, once I graduated and got that first job, I was much, much, much better prepared than my fellow students who simply focused on performing on the test, because I had actually *done* some of this stuff.

Thus, I think it is better to read and *understand* Shakespeare, than it is to, say, study nonsensical word games for the SAT (If A is to B, then C is to ). Reading Thucydides to understand the causes and results of the Peloponnesian War is better than memorizing when the battles took place. Designing a digital circuit and watching it break, and then fixing it, is more important than being able to regurgitate the formula for Ohm’s Law.

Yes, we need testing that is standardized to a degree to gauge progress, but testing every year, several times, with school funding and teacher pink slips tied directly to the results of the test output, doesn’t help anybody.

(I brought up Thucydides, because in case you don’t know, America’s founding fathers studied that war a LOT as part of the debate whether to have a direct democracy, similar to Athens, or a more representative oriented one, similar to Sparta). Understanding context is MORE IMPORTANT than we teach today.

Ronc
December 15, 2010 at 4:08 pm

“Designing a digital circuit and watching it break, and then fixing it, is more important than being able to regurgitate the formula for Ohm’s Law.” I’d say they are equally important. The practical work generates questions which can be answered by the formula. So you won’t be able to answer the questions unless you can use the formula in all it’s permutations. Also, why limit the discussion to “digital” circuits when Ohm’s law primarily applies to analog?

You missed my overall theme to nit-pick: the theme is, we aren’t teaching Shakespeare or Thucydides, nor are we having science labs that build circuits. We are only teaching things that can be turned into “fill in the oval” questions on a standardized test. Without context, these questions essentially mean nothing – you are a mile wide and inch deep.

Ronc
December 16, 2010 at 2:14 pm

I spent most of my college years flipping to the back of the book to see if I got the right answer. The instant feedback was a valuable learning tool. As long as there are enough wrong ovals to fill in, such tests can be an accurate measure of knowledge.

The busy work aspect of this article is very important in my view. I saw my son bringing home ridiculous amounts of homework throughout junior high school, much of which was coloring, word searches and other non-educative activities. A quick review of literature suggests that homework causes worse performance rather than better. It strikes me that at the very least, if an hour of homework is required, it should at least be an hour of academic work; not five minutes of learning and 55 minutes of coloring and word searches.

Scott
December 15, 2010 at 6:14 am

The “truth” that you seek Bob is that government does a good job with almost none of the tasks that it undertakes. Education is one of those things they fail at doing. Teachers are pushing off the teaching on parents through homework. Return the tax money to the citizens and allow them to choose what education they want for their children. The best eductional models will rise to the top and the quality of the students being produced will rise with it. Continuing to fund a system that cannot achieve its goals is the very definition of insanity.

Cris E
December 15, 2010 at 11:22 am

>>Return the tax money to the citizens and allow them to choose what education they want for their children.

The problem isn’t the money, it’s the paucity of options to spend it on. If I gave you $9k or whatever and sent you out into the world to educate your child you’d end up in a school very similar to what you’re complaining about. For every difference you could point out that proved the superiority of this hypothetical better option I could find five similarities that show how close it is to the current failure.

If education cost 50% more but actually worked I think people would pay it. If people could define what “works” actually means I think educators might be able to approach it. But right now the education system (American anyway) is serving so many masters that it has collapsed into a heap of conflicting goals and competing specialists. You suggest that free markets might clarify that mission and allow improvements, but I suggest that the differences would only be incremental and more often due to narrowing the student body to magnet schools where active parents made choices and default schools where parents didn’t.

Excellent response, Chris. I mentioned in an earlier post to this article that I was afraid there were going to be a lot of libertarian leaning statements made about this with no basis in fact, and this is one of them.

I notice that libertarians don’t squawk so loudly now about privatizing social security, since it is a provable fact that given what happened in 2008, the worst thing in the WORLD we could have done is make the system private. Back then, the arguments were how people could do so much better managing their own money their own way, and the best investments would rise to the top, but the problem is, well, no investments rose, and in fact, they all tanked, and “nobody saw it coming”, except the very few, almost literally a handful, that in some sense caused it.

Taking this route with education will only result in the same thing – there will be a bifurcation, with a tiny fraction doing better than the “public school” model, and the rest up poop’s creek without a paddle.

Having it public means we can at least debate, as a society, how to do it… we can vote for school boards, we can vote for regional, state, and national representatives that we can vote out in 2 years if we don’t like them, etc. Can you imagine if, say, Haliburton was in the private school business? How do you hold them accountable?

If the libertarian ideals that are exposed by some of these folks are so great, then why can’t you point to any industrialized nation that has experimented with libertarianism and shown it to be a success? You can’t, because it can’t be successful.

Ronc
December 15, 2010 at 4:21 pm

The fact is that private schools are simply better or they would not survive. I think those who value education would support private schools and those who don’t would support neither private nor public. So we need publically funded public schools for those who would otherwise ignore education. And we need privately funded private schools for those who do. It’s just unfortunate that the private school people have to fund both.

No, the private schools survive because in some neighborhoods they are safer or because they address a personal requirement that the public schools avoid (such as a religious POV, evolution, or a willingness to disregard science that contradicts personal views). Few of them actually perform better at teaching the bulk of the kids in the local population. The better test scores that are often seen are typically due to the cherry picking nature of the private schools; when you don’t have to have the special education kids in your school, average test scores improve, but that doesn’t mean that the cream of the school is doing better than the cream of the local public school that generally pays better for teachers and has much greater resources on which the students can draw.

Ronc
December 15, 2010 at 5:06 pm

My point is they are privately funded and so would not survive unless the end result were better, whatever the reason. In the private schools I attended the greatest motivational force for the students to behave and learn was the fear of being expelled and having to go to public schools. In public schools there was less discpline since kids would be promoted to get rid of them regardless of how much work they did or how disruptive they were.

MikeB
December 15, 2010 at 6:18 am

Does anyone know if a systems-oriented approach to the curriculum has been attempted? Imagine a set of high-school graduation requirements is defined, sort of a Capability Maturity Model (enough readin’, ‘ritin’, ‘rithmetic to evaluate job opportunities and apply for them, and to fill out tax forms; enough social studies for informed voting; enough biology to understand family planning, and to make reasonable health decisions; etc.). Then imagine a sequence of ‘modules’ of curriculum spread over a dozen years to get from nothing to CMM level 1, with a network of dependencies to get them in order. Maybe the teacher of each module should test each incoming student to ensure they’ve learned the pre-requisites, and either reject them or assign remedial work for a couple of weeks; teachers might be evaluated (at least in part) based on the success of their students in entering the next modules. Higher levels could be defined for higher education. I think modules could be mostly dissociated from age/calendar.

I don’t know if this could be a workable approach, but as a systems guy myself, I get frustrated at the arbitrary pigeon-holing and ineffective ‘system’ we have now. Fortunately, my own daughter survived (even thrived), so it doesn’t affect me directly. But my neighbors’ kids are not thriving, and it worries me.

Champs
December 15, 2010 at 6:24 am

From my limited experience as an exchange student in Germany, my Gymnasium let out for a lengthy lunch, but the expectation was that it is served at home. Classes resumed an hour or so later and into the afternoon.

And might I add, what a hell of a way to kick off the summer break after junior year than to go right back to school in a strange country.

[…] When I was Channing’s age, 50 years ago, my parents’ attitude was one of benign neglect. They were busy doing whatever parents did back then (drinking and smoking cigarettes, mainly), but it sure didn’t include helping me with my homework. Somehow my siblings and I survived just fine. Yet today we’re supposedly faced with plummeting test scores and surging dropout rates despite whole generations of parents slaving away every night on homework. What gives? via cringely.com […]

Adam Chandler
December 15, 2010 at 6:46 am

The answer is pretty obvious. Home school your kids. Start by reading John Holt.

Mark
December 15, 2010 at 7:00 am

Politicians collect their salary from tax payers. Tax payers pay politicians because we’re afraid of what might happen if the politicians weren’t there to protect us from whatever menace the politicians have convinced us they’re protecting us from. This holds true for a variety of menaces, whether it’s terrorism, poverty, or low test scores. Therefore, the politicians’ job is to scare us and keep us scared and keep us coughing up the dough to protect us. That’s why the politicians love bad news. It doesn’t help that sensationalism sells, so the media has a built-in motive to keep us scared, too.

The good news, Bob, is that we don’t need to know what the answer is. There’s a way to discover it: through the competitive free market process. This will be accomplished once parents are given a choice about where to send their kids to school. Some schools may let the kids out at noon. Some may keep them until 8 pm. Some may give three hours of busy-work a night, some may give no homework at all. Some may teach art and music, and some may focus exclusively on math and science. Some may get great standard test scores, some may opt out of standardized tests alltogether. At the end of the day, the only thing that should matter is where the parents decide to send their kids. Only then will we be able to discover what works and what doesn’t, and then we’ll have our answer.

NoTalentHack
December 15, 2010 at 9:29 am

Great. So condemn a generation of kids to be the guinea pigs in your great free market education experiment.

KD
December 15, 2010 at 7:43 pm

You think the kids aren’t the guinea pigs now?????

The current system clearly is not working. What Mark suggests seems to me to be a pretty good way to get at least some chance of improvement.

Mike
December 15, 2010 at 7:03 am

My experience is similar. I wish I had had the fortitude to say no to homework before third grade. I have a lot more to say, but I have too much homework to finish (with my two sons – it’s test week you know.)

MAtt
December 15, 2010 at 7:14 am

So, those who thrived and achieved under the “old system” rose to power and – I’m basing on their actions – now believe it was in spite of the “old system” rather than because of it? Is that why they think we need more home work, longer school hours, more repetition?

Don H
December 15, 2010 at 7:22 am

Read ‘Outliers’.
Yes, test based education is bad.
But, no, too much education is not.
And, yes, homework is an opportunity, look what did for Don Knuth for one example.
Homework is the source of one of our easiest and best starts at 10,000 hours of practice.
As usual, it is never the thing itself, but our reaction to it which gets us into trouble.
And by the way, you don’t have to do all the homework that is assigned either, it is still a choice.
Many of our schools offer bad classroom environments. I had to send my kids to a private, dePaul, school because they could not keep up in a regular class room. The dePaul program did not assign any homework because the class was 100% drill. It helped my kids but I would not say it was perfect either.
Please continue your style of coming to the table with a solution rather than just a gripe.

Trent
December 15, 2010 at 7:27 am

The best teacher I ever had was a blank sheet of paper.

Not Me
December 15, 2010 at 7:28 am

When my children were younger, their homework load made me downright angry. Like Bob, my wife and I would spend several hours a night helping my kids learn the things the teachers didn’t teach them during the day at school.

The book was really good for pointing out two things, first, homework is a good way to teach kids things like self reliance and self control. Second, homework is their responsibility, NOT mine, and not yours.

If your kids homework is a problem, it is well worth a read.

Acowamous Nonherd
December 15, 2010 at 7:42 am

I note that the comments have, predictably, hauled in the “it’s all the unions’ fault” and “politicians are the root of all evil” types. But what I don’t see is people focussing on the source of this situation. For how we educate our children is, at base, a cultural issue. And the only people we can look upon as responsible for our culture is ourselves.

We live in a profoundly anti-intellectual, technocratic age. That someone as breathtakingly ignorant as Sarah Palin could even be mooted as a candidate for the U.S. Presidency illustrates the former point. Know-nothing low-grade morons keep getting elected to public office, where they busy themselves legislating dumbass ideas (like that you can set the value of pi by legislative fiat; or that God has, for some reason, planted a bunch of apparently million-year-old rocks in the ground just to screw with our paltry brains — because a just God is one that creates a bunch of creatures and then tortures them with phony evidence! That’ll learn ya, you condescending liberal intellectuals). So part of this is accepting that there are, in fact, people _better than us_ at running things, and then delegating them to do that while keeping an eye on them to ensure they’re not being evil.

Meanwhile, a fetish for numbers that we can pretend are data means that anything not subject to easy measurement is derided as fluffy and hare-brained. (Things only subject to difficult measurement are out of the question, because difficult measurement is expensive. The populace, gullible enough to believe in God the Sadistic Mindblower, is certainly gullible enough to believe in simplistic metaphors comparing the government — which prints the money — with its own households — which don’t print the money. So instead we get tax policy that pretends that not taxing really rich people will cause magic giant-fiscal-hole-reduction fairies to appear some time in the far off future.) The result of this is, predictably, that the entire culture, not to mention the entire education system, is reduced to simple-minded problems the results of which are easily tested. In this Barbie culture, where not only math but also English, Spanish, history, social studies, and everything else is hard, we have a simple answer. We don’t teach the hard stuff, but instead make everything easy to test. And now we can prove that things are going well, because look! We tested it, and it’s proven.

If we think that this is a problem, then there is in fact an answer to it, but it’s not the one most people think. It is not something that can be done quickly or easily, and it certainly can’t be done for free. The answer is to work on restoring the element of civic virtue that once made public service and government a possible answer to the kinds of problems that are fundamentally civic in nature. This means, yes, higher taxes and a certain amount of overhead lost in public functions. It also means preventing bureaucracies from being taken over by petty bureaucrats and technocratic fetishists of all kinds. Just as much, it means taking the power of government back from the destructive, evil kleptocrats who pretend to be drooling morons. Public virtue ought to be regarded as virtuous — it ought to be not just embarrassing, but absolutely disqualifying that someone who couldn’t even be bothered to vote in the past wants to be governor of a state.

This isn’t someone else’s fault. It’s ours. If we want to do something about it, then we have to do what the so-called “conservative” movement (the only conservatives ever who have wanted to rip everything down) have been doing since the days of Barry Goldwater: working hard to achieve the goal. They’ve been busily trying to make al governments ineffective and broken. They’ve very nearly succeeded, as is illustrated by a whole country of students whose test scores keep getting better even though nobody seems to know anything. You don’t like this? Then you have a job to do, and it’s not to go into your bunker and home school everyone in sight. It’s to get involved in the rest of the community,

Gustave
December 15, 2010 at 8:25 am

Acowamous Nonherd has it. I took a job in “Higher Ed” a few years ago. Very enlightening experience. The learn, instead of think, culture is also resident in Universities.

I don’t know the answers, but to believe that we just need to home school these kids to fix the system????? You can’t fix the system by opting out. The phrase “We the People..” is as much about responsibility and accountability, as it is about freedom.

francis
December 15, 2010 at 8:15 am

Well there is a lot of research what makes people skilled, and it’s all about practice, not genetics (See popular books on this: Gadwell’s Outliers, or Talent is Overrated). But it’s a special kind of practice, that counts, not just putting in mind-numbing hours of repetition. It’s practice focused on specifically addressing performance deficiencies.

Bob, as a pilot, you know all this well enough. Flight hours logged is a good predictor of skill.

I kind of agree with you actually. If the homework is not focused practice, then it’s not as useful as it could be.

You know what I think is the biggest bang for the educational buck? Forget about private school. In most places you can hire a tutor for about $30 / hr. Pick your subject: French, Math, Reading . . . whatever you want. A one-on-one hour with a good tutor (aka coach) is worth more than hours of homework drudgery. And you can buy a lot of hours of one-on-one tutoring for the $$ you would spend on private school.

Gustave
December 15, 2010 at 8:56 am

francis, your point is valid. Skill is dependent on experience (training) and it is a key function of public education. But it’s not really where we are failing. The standardized testing focus of today is all about skills.

While US public schools (K-12) have not been highly regarded in my lifetime, in the 1950-80 time period US higher ed was the envy of the rest of the world (and they voted with their pocket book by sending their best and brightest). The, now disappearing, BA and graduate degrees were all about exposure (oh how I hated the foreign language requirement at the time) and learning to think.

Ability and Skill makes good pilots and engineers, but exposure (to other styles, cultures, times) and learning to think (critically and for your self) are needed to make adults and citizens.

We are still turning out great pilots and engineers, (and perhaps too many CEOs and Lawyers), but I worry about having great neighbors.

francis
December 15, 2010 at 11:08 am

You have a good point. Learning a second language is a great first step to seeing the world in a different way. I also notice that many Asians who come here take a western name. But I don’t know any people going to work in Asia who adopt Asian names. It’s a mindset.

If we want to sell to the rest of the world, we should do our market research and find out what they want, just like they do so effectively for us. Most of the time we just try to sell them the same products that we would want, blindly assuming they must want them too. It’s the old “selling refrigerators to Eskimos mentality”. Yes that has to change if we are to succeed and prosper. eg. you go to France and see McDonalds. The President of Yum Foods (KFC, Pepsi, Pizza Hut) in China had an epiphany. He said he realized he was selling “Chinese food” (meaning he was in the same position as selling Chinese food in the USA). KFC, Pepsi and Pizza are not universal human foods, but ethic foods, in China. So Yum now has chains selling all kinds of local foods in China, bringing the state-of-the-art efficiency to selling fast foods ordinary Chinese are comfortable with. Not that they don’t like KFC. I never saw so many KFCs McDonalds and Starbucks as I ever did in Beijing (2008).

Very similar scenario here in the UK as in the US by the sounds of things. Except here we’re constantly been told that year upon year there are even better exam results… By now, if you believed all this baloney the UK would be full of geniuses. Clearly it’s not, so the bull, or way of measuring, is simply wrong. There aren’t the jobs to offer all these youngsters with sociology, media or business management degrees. At least not jobs they could do well at and are educated for. A good, old-fashioned Physics degree? What’s that then?

Tylerh
December 15, 2010 at 9:15 am

Bob,

There is a national movement to reduce homework. Google “Race to Nowhere,” watch the movie, and get involved.

A local church showed this movie last Friday night — to a packed house. At one point in the film, an AP Bio teacher says “I cut the homework in half, and the test scores went up.”

My (National Merit) daughter would be much better educated if her homework were cut in half.

Fighting this is hard: I tried to “just say no” when my daughter was in elementary school, but my wife wouldn’t support me. So my daughter lost much of her childhood to needless worksheets.

I’ve been going over all his home work to make sure he’s got it 100% correct. We also study together before each test. Even after all this, WE’RE just hanging onto an A grade. Those darn simple mistakes have been killing OUR test score.

However, last night, the subject of dividing one fraction into another came up. OK, son of mine, how do you divide one fraction into another. After five minutes of guesses it was clear he did not know the simple invert-and-multiply rule.

So strange I thought, we did a 1000 of those just a month ago in his homework! How could he not know?

So, I think I’m going to relax on the homework and spend more time on the wipe board going over old material from earlier in the year.

Spending time getting the concepts nailed is way more important than getting the damn homework done!

A huge number of lower-socioeconomic kids get sent to school on an empty stomach, and often dinner the night before was just junk food and soda. Most schools have a lunch program for underprivileged kids, so they get one good meal a day, but the four hours of school before lunch are completely wasted because of the plain fact that kids cannot learn well when they are routinely hungry.

Teachers’ unions and the PTA have this item on their radar, but it’s a pure cost issue. And it’s hard to convince people to spend money on more food when the public perception is that kids are borderline obese. Quality not quantity doesn’t sell, so nothing happens.

This isn’t the definitive cause of education issues of course, but it points out a category problem: educational performance has a PR link to teaching and homework and drills. But there seems to be no thought given to just making sure kids are safe, healthy, well-rested, nourished, and perhaps even happy. Those are things that make kids WANT to learn new things. That’s what we should really be working on: making kids want to learn, not forcing them to learn.

We have a couple of generations of children suffering from an inability to focus for any length of time on anything other than video media.
Homework is necessary practice for learning skills, and learning to concentrate on one topic for a stretch of time.
When I was a kid, doing homework, studying, getting good grades was enforced through the consequences of punishment if we failed in those responsibilities. Consequences is what the average kid experiences very little of these days.
Yes, I get a sometimes get a bit wistful about what else we might be doing when I am riding herd on my child to do homework, but repetition is how things get learned and get done.

Gary Webb
December 15, 2010 at 11:41 am

Granted, two hours of homework is too much.

“And since Channing would really rather be fishing or terrorizing his little brothers those two hours regularly turn into three hours or more.”
Doesn’t there seem to be a lack of focus? Don’t kids complain about any kind of homework?
The idea of homework being “busy work” is not entirely wrong. But one has to think why the busy work. It is so the child learns to concentrate to accomplish a task. And some things can only be learned by rote. Like in the movie The Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio’s character had to do seemingly meaningless tasks. It was only later that those muscle exertions helped him perform those karate moves.
And if the idea of the busy work is for the child to learn discipline and have goal oriented mentality, is it any wonder that parents doing the homework for their child defeats the purpose?The child does not learn discipline, and only vaguely learns from the homework assignment.
Wax on, wax off.

Cris E
December 15, 2010 at 12:57 pm

>>Like in the movie The Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio’s character had to do seemingly meaningless tasks. It was only later that those muscle exertions helped him perform those karate moves <<

My ten year old responds well to this sort of thinking, so we're constantly watching for examples of "boring junk" that was endured earlier that finally comes in handy. Identifying prepositional phrases was holy hell, but now that he can do it well he can easily remove them from complex sentences to discern what they're saying. Running in basketball practice was a drag until one half-time when the coach said "You're in better shape than they are, so I want everyone running the whole second half" and the other guys wore down.

When his interest is flagging we can whip one of these out and explain why he's doing whatever is on the table that day. It's been a huge help.

There’s lots of great stuff here that I’ll be digesting this evening. Maybe I’ll even write about this topic again tomorrow. But for now here is the way I am approaching this issue at chez Cringely: we are building a boat.

This winter my boys and I are building a boat together. We chose the design, ordered the plans, figured out a couple modifications to suit our particular sense of style, and have started building. We’re only a month into the project with at least another 3-4 months to go, but everyone (including Mom, who is sublimely uninvolved) is having a blast. Channing gets to be the leader he is desperate to be. Geeky Cole gets to question and validate every design and construction decision. Little Fallon just gets to build stuff. I think my boys are getting more from building this little boat than they get from school. Maybe I should start a magnet school around boat building. Now if only I could get an adult helper who speaks Spanish or maybe Mandarin so we could add language instruction to the mix…

Obligatory
December 15, 2010 at 3:34 pm

… Is there a Home Depot nearby?

Daniel
December 15, 2010 at 6:52 pm

That’s a great idea. You’ve inspired me to do something similar with my kids!

Thanks people, for all the great comments on education and homework. I just have a few comments to make.

1. I hated studying English and writing reports when going to school. However, after working in public accounting and having to compose letters to clients and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), I finally learned something and now I really enjoy writing. Education continues into adult life for many people. There’s nothing like good old trial and error.

2. Forgive me, but I think that getting our economy back in order is even more important than trying to improve our educational system. I believe in first things first. If the parents are unemployed, depressed, and can’t take care of their kids properly, how can the schools solve this problem?

3. Speaking of improving our economy — Bob, how is the second phase of the Startup Tour coming along? Also, I’m looking forward to seeing those videos of all your interviews.

Steve M.
December 15, 2010 at 2:38 pm

I’ve had a fairly successful career in IT and technology over the last 30 (shit! that long?!?) years. I attribute none of this to spending hours a night on homework, but instead to pretending to finish my homework so I could spend endless hours with model trains, model rockets and riding/fixing second-hand beat-to-crap bicycles.

To quote another education radical, David Warlick, “You win the blue ribbon at the county fair for the apple pie not because it stayed in the oven longer than the rest, but because you used better ingredients and prepared it better.”

I think the same is true for education.

I also liked the inch deep and a mile wide part of your article. I find that I’m teaching concepts two years earlier than I used to (Atomic structure to 8th graders when before it was to Grade 10) to students who don’t have a clue about what I’m talking about and who don’t care that they don’t care. Also, the longer I teach the more mico-managed I am. I have more forms to fill out and “things” to do other than teaching than I ever did 15 years ago and I’m finding out what a crappy administrator I am… Oh wait a minute, I’m supposed to be a teacher. Oh well.

Another anecdotal piece of evidence that ‘more” isn’t necessarily “better”, and can, in fact, be “worse”. Our elementary school here is great, but they have this absurd fascination with “advanced reader” (AR) testing – you read a book, then take a 10 question test on it on the computer, and get points. The kids with the most points at the end of the year get, like, gift certificates or something.

As I’ve mentioned before, my son struggles to read due to OT issues (eye focus, etc.). He *hated* reading in 2nd and 3rd grade… he felt awful how low his AR point total was… it was a huge blow to his self-esteem, and a high amount of work for us as parents – reading the books with him, creating our own quizzes to see if he understood the books, etc.

In fourth grade, he got a teacher who thinks that AR is just stupid, and doesn’t make his kids do it. My son has now learned to LOVE to read, because he doesn’t HAVE to do it as homework. Just the other day he actually picked up a book on his own for the sole purpose of doing an AR test, just to see how he would do. It is 180 degrees the opposite of last year.

Made me realize I should have just done what Bob did wit his kids – just let his other teachers know we wouldn’t be participating that activity. Makes me feel bad that I pushed him so hard the last couple of years.

Michelle
December 15, 2010 at 5:13 pm

This is an issue that arises in just about every country. I don’t really think its about testing, or whether eduction is public or private.

Our economy and society (worldwide) have changed so rapidly in the last 50 years but our educational institutions haven’t

But I agree – at your son’s age, homework should not be required, or at least be kept to a very minimum – I would say 15 minutes max.

Mark Laurel
December 15, 2010 at 5:51 pm

Great link, by the way. I hadn’t seen it before, but I believe he’s right.

Mark Laurel
December 15, 2010 at 5:22 pm

Long time reader, first time poster….

After 15 years as a homemaker raising two kids, I’ve started working in schools. And I’ve noticed a few things. First, public schools are doing a pretty good job at what they were designed to do. They were designed at the turn of the last century with the goals of sorting out managers from workers, and training everyone to follow direction from authorities. In other words, to work in factories.

But now we’re faced with some changes. Our desired outcomes are different, our students have greater challenges (poverty, hunger, language), and our pool of teachers is getting worse. But of course, there are many agents who profit from the old system, and fight against meaningful change.

I suppose the good news is that crisis produces opportunity. I just hope for all of our children that we will find humane and effective ways to support learning.

Ronc
December 16, 2010 at 2:24 pm

The opportunity, imho, has existed since the 50’s. It has resulted in privately funded private schools.

According to The Economist, I am a “clever redneck.” The school system of Alberta is one of the best in the world, we’re next door and we speak English. We’re also pretty similar to America in ethnic composition and history. But, when my classmate immigrated to Alberta, he told me that he also did it for his kids and he found out that, in Alberta, teachers receive high salaries. In America, if you are a total waste of oxygen and your last name is Hilton, you’ll earn a high income but if you’re a teacher, the best you can hope for is playing the part of a villain in a Hollywood B movie…
Increase teacher salaries and get rid of the worst ones (quote from Homer Simpson: “They’re firing me because I am dangerously unqualified for my job!”) Teachers, once they’re hired, are almost impossible to fire.
Unlike you Bob, I lived in Germany for just over a year, and I heard from my German friends, that once the three year probationary period was over for a German teacher, it would be next to impossible to get rid of them. So, the logical consequence was that the three year teachers, on probation, were the hardest workers and good teachers, after that, it was all over, and most German teachers would never work again…

J Peters
December 28, 2010 at 2:20 pm

Firing folks in most European countries is difficult compared to employed at will US.

I worked for a British company here in the US and the Brit director took great pleasure in sacking US employees.

As for the myth of the tenured US school teachers, it is actually a variation of employed at will with process. The process is merely a defined series of steps
leading up to dismissal. If a school principal wishes to fire a teacher all they have to do is follow the process. The teacher union’s will only referee the process.

David Stewart
January 14, 2011 at 9:14 am

There are around 400,000 teachers here in the UK and in the past 20 years the number fired for professional incompetence (as opposed to gross misconduct, etc) was 14. If that’s not a culture of un-sackability, then I don’t know what is.

The teaching “profession” in this country has been steeped in an environment of soft-left non-judgmental liberalism and led by confrontational hard-left trade unionists for decades. Successive governments have done nothing about it.

Today, tens of thousands of young people leave school unable to read or write coherently yet public exam results have shown record pass rates every year for God knows how long. University admissions tutors and employers alike complain that the standard of applicants has fallen and fallen, yet the teaching unions and their friends in the Labour Party insist that grade-inflation doesn’t exist. Deeply depressing.

Hasan Mohammad
December 15, 2010 at 6:03 pm

I strongly agree that the American System of Education is constantly deteriorating due to not only the Appalling Level of public and Governmental support but of also the many teaching methods institutionalized in such an Education system of practice.The Major factor in such a crisis is the revision of concepts taught at an educational institution at Home. A Conventional practice known as ‘Homework’. Coming from Australia, The term homework usually refers to that of a stack of Photocopied slips of Paper of no real educational or social value in the Open-Educational sector of the United States Today. The Advent of such technologies as seen with the personal Computer Revolution will greatly aid in such concepts and provide a key in which students can tap into their full potential, making their learning an Interactive and Intuitive Experience.
Shall any one disagree please leave a Comment or email me at:koran90@live.com

Joe DiBola
December 16, 2010 at 7:15 am

Apparently they didn’t teach you much about capitalization there in Australia. Or heck, maybe American English is just that much different; I’m not 100% sure. We tend not to capitalize words unless they refer to a proper noun, start a sentence, or are part of a title (such as Dr., System Engineer, etc.). However, there are plenty of Americans too who are under the illusion capitalization is somewhat random.

But I would agree to your point; American education has been steadily declining over the past two decades or so, and it will be our undoing I’m sure. I’ve said for years now, English is a difficult enough language to understand properly when its rules have been followed, let alone when the speaker or writer chooses not to follow them. And if the teachers can’t even communicate properly, how are the students supposed to learn? Couple that with not willing to call something wrong when it’s wrong (oh, we might damage their feelings), and it’s a recipe for mediocrity or worse.

“There is only one Bob Metcalfe and one John Warnock. Individuals are not categories”

Or so the Joe Bs of the world would have us believe. It’s a useful literary device.

Daniel
December 15, 2010 at 6:29 pm

Bob,

Boy have you hit a sore spot with me. I have 6 kids in school, and as the years go by, I’ve become less and LESS of a believer in our school system. In fact at this point, I think my kids teachers and their friend’s parents would consider me a neglectful parent. Because I don’t push any of my kids to perform to the school standards or get involved in after school activities. You know the parents I’m talking about, the kind that run around non-stop every day and weekend dragging their kids to this activity and that sport.

How do you even have time to just sit down and take notice of the world? When you are always on the run like that. I think that is on purpose too, if you’re never at rest, you don’t notice what your government is doing.

And your comment about critical thinking was insightful as well. Our government doesn’t want a country of thinkers, it wants useful idiots that do what there told, and are good little consumers. Go into debt buying lots of useful stuff, that way you’re chained to your job and trying to keep the debt collectors at bay. Do you know what they teach my kids in “Guidence”? If someone starts hitting you, don’t fight back, just fall to the ground and curl in a ball. Can you believe that? Don’t stand up for yourself, just submit! Be a good little citizen and do as your told.

So, no are schools are not here for our benifit, they are here to create the citizenry that a Dictorial government wants.

Further to agreeing with everything you said as a true observation. Current real time brain imaging techniques have observed the human brain remodelling / rewiring synapses from approximately 14 and now we are looking at a completed cognitive development at around 25. The impulse control, response inhibition, and sensation seeking desires become primary. It has be found even testing individuals of 12 can out score a 15 yo, on many standard cognitive tests. Interestingly behaviour changes noted are, increased novelty seeking, increased risk taking, and a social shift toward peer based interactions, enter Facebook.

It concerns me that during a time when adolescents are having this major change in the brains wiring, the system has put in place the educational pressures you have mentioned with no regard for this major period of cognitive upheaval. Even the sleep pattern alters, and they don’t feel tired until the early hours, which means they need to sleep till late morning.

For parents and schools to be unaware of this new knowledge is tragic. As we know from human history, consequences have proved dire. Many adolescent issues formally attributed to ‘hormones’, now prove to be brain cognition developing. An area that is the clear responsibility of those mentoring, teaching and parenting our young people.

My message to you Bob is to enjoy the pre 14 years, lay the foundation for addressing the years of critical cognitive development and remember no one knows how to teach your children how to cope post 14, better than your partner and yourself. : )

BozoTheClown
December 15, 2010 at 7:17 pm

It’s this easy.

15-30 minutes EVERY WEEKDAY: a discussion with your kid about what happened during the day at school and after … not prying so much as “what happened in your world today.” The child’s conversation provides clues for the adult ask the next unanticipated question.

Weekends: if you have an interesting in life (read that again), your child might want to spend some time with you on the weekend when you out of the house and dealing with the world, which to the child is a new adventure to see real adults informally.

During the summer: require 1 hour per day reading ANY printed book the child chooses, FIVE days a week. Again in the evening 15-30 minutes discussion of ANY aspect the child wants to relate about the reading … allowing the adult to expand the conversation.

Result? Step-son Eric was almost held back for awful reading but conditionally promoted to 5th grade. New to the house I instituted my “program.” In fifth grade after one month: Eric was promoted to the fastest reading group with an apology about the “he must have had a bad day when we assessed him back in 4th.”

One word of caution: most adult people are greater dullards than they realize.

Oh of course the above won’t work today like it did in 1968, because everything has advanced so much since.

Cringe: did I miss it, or did you leave out how you actively bring your children along EACH DAY? It sounds to me like you are very politically correct and have almost NO TIME for your kids.

Morgan Chia
December 15, 2010 at 7:42 pm

In Singapore, we have been on this topic for decades since I was still in high school some 20 years ago. My friends’ kids spend some 3 hours on homework everyday and the Ministry of Health is citing increasing child pyschology issues due to study stress. We even have satires on the size of the school bags that our children are carrying to school.

It is weird, our Prime Minister wants to follow the American education system where Americans “teach Less but learn More”… Is it still true?

MikeN
December 15, 2010 at 7:57 pm

Some things just have to be done with homework. Math education for example.

Let them have their homework.

The real problem is the teachers tend not to be very qualified in America.
Vast majority come from the bottom third of college graduates.

BozoTheClown
December 15, 2010 at 9:07 pm

I graduated from high school in 1961. It was a bumper crop of people going to college.

EVEN THE C & D students went: to state teachers colleges!

You think there is a mess in public education? I know who did it. :^)

Jack, Has Standards
December 15, 2010 at 9:23 pm

1-2 hours of Homework is ridiculous for an 8 year old. That’s not a top school he’s going to, it’s a bad school.

Kid’s need to learn by playing when they’re young, not by being locked up in a class room all day, and they sentenced to home work afterwards. And they need to play with all ages of people, not just 8 year olds.

There’s this think called Unschooling (the supreme form of Home Schooling). That’s what my 8-yr-old is “enrolled” in. (Heh.)

In the Waldorf School system (originally from Germany, but with 200 independent schools in the US) there is no homework before 5th grade. It is not developmentally appropriate. Cognitive psychology would generally support this, but insecure parents and the educators who serve them are always in a hurry to start the kids on everything as soon as possible, which usually means way too early. Common sense and experience are usually ignored (like the Texas Librarians). Education is just a susceptible to fads as any other area.

Germanys education system is in constant change, not necessarily for the better.

Primary schools now offer full day care, including homework assistance, in order to make it possible for parents to go to work instead of having to care for their kids.

German high schools also have classes in the afternoon, and have had them for 20 years plus.

I think homework is often a necessity as the diversity of kids at school often turns teachers into add-on parents and the teaching gets left behind. The ‘quality’ of basic human behaviour of kids has been going down (my wife’s a teacher, so I know…).
Kids today read less and are much more easily distracted or can’t concentrate. Fast food, too much sugar, and way too much TV do their thing to make this worse.

Homework is often a possibility for kids to re-capture what they did at school in the comfort of a quiet home. At least if the parents take the time to make this happen.

Hasan Mohammad
December 16, 2010 at 1:03 am

In addition much of the American education system is need of Numerous Political Reforms to ‘Revolutionize’ the methods put into place through conventional observance in such a System of Education. The Economy also plays a role in the determining of our actions Educationally with so much time spent on the Current Bailout to the extent that we cannot even look at the consequences of Congress overlooking important issues within the American National and Social Society.
A Reform is greatly needed for our Educational System.
Can anyone name a Suggestion?
PLEASE REPLY OR EMAIL ME AT:koran90@live.com

Dennis M.
December 16, 2010 at 6:11 am

If we’re going to continue down this road let’s put John and Martha King in charge of education. Their whole focus is passing the test. As far as remembering content you’re on your own!

Scottie
December 16, 2010 at 6:57 am

The answer is not that complicated. It’s vouchers, school choice, and competition. Let parents pick the school that is right for their kids and life-style. The bad schools will fail and close. Trust me, better schools will pop up all over the place if the existing schools are not meeting the needs of the parents.

Others have mentioned homeschooling, and it’s not for everyone, but my guys sure like not having “homework” and really pity their friends in the neighborhood who do. We set our own schedule, and my oldest spends about 3 hours total on focused work. The rest of the time is spent playing and exploring the world. Just yesterday, we went to see an armorer and learned a awful lot about history, art and metallurgy. It’s just a lot more fun than school, and they’re learning more, too. Heck, I’m learning a lot. Some people feel that we are sequestering ourselves from the world, but I ask you, isn’t corralling kids in a building with only their same-age group for most of the day more sequestering? We’re actually out in the real world every day and engaging with our community. My kids are getting to interact with all age groups, not just their own.

Waldorfmom
December 16, 2010 at 7:41 am

We are headed to where the Asians are now, and it’s not pretty there. They have cram schools for kindergardeners and burnt-out 6-year olds. And young people who are boycotting the system by never emerging from their bedrooms. Let’s not go that way!

Try organising a screening of “The Race to Nowhere” at your school, follow up with a dialog between parents, teachers and students. This documentary spells out what is wrong with today’s approach to education. Such screenings all over the country seem to be building into a groundswell of expression of the idea that our children are not on the right path.

If you can afford private school, there are alternatives. My children go to a type of school (http://whywaldorfworks.org/) where homework starts in 3rd grade, and grades are given in 7th grade and up. They RELISH the homework. They RUN TO SCHOOL in the morning.

My oldest child is now in a public-school 9th grade, and is thriving on the new challenge of and immense homework load. But we limit her homework time. If it’s not finished, too bad (and a pox on her grades). We do this because we strongly believe that she needs her sleep, and she needs to get out and breathe some fresh air, and she needs to hang out with her friends: in short, she needs to live.

R. Stoer
December 16, 2010 at 8:06 am

While some of the statistics may have been wrong, the point of this column is right on the money. Personally, I’d like to see regular nightly homework eliminated and the concept reserved for projects and extra credit. If schools claim to give ‘an hour of homework a night’ why not just keep school in for another hour and eliminate homework?
Actually we need to top-to-bottom reexamination of our current education system in order to find efficient and engaging methods of educating our children in the 21st century. Whoever figures this out first will have a huge advantage for decades to come. It’s not going to be us unless we get a serious dialog going before it’s too late.

Thank you for this article. I’m meeting an increasing number of parents who are letting teachers know their children will NOT be doing homework at the elementary school level, or limiting the time for homework to one hour. If it doesn’t get done, so be it.

My youngest is in 5th grade and has 2 hours of homework a night. At the beginning of the year, her teacher told the class “You will never have a night without homework.” I find this shocking. Where is the time for play? Piano practice? Chores? Not to mention the need to just have “down time.”

On the other hand, there was no homework until about 9th grade where we lived previously as ex-pats (Denmark.) My elder daughter, who is in the 98th percentile amongst her peers in testing, was bored stiff. Now she is in Advanced Placement at her U.S. middle school and is somewhat more challenged. She has a fair share of homework — but LESS than my poor 5th grader.

My mother is and educator and I value and honor the teachers in our school system. At our local public school the teachers work extremely hard and put in long hours. But I’m frustrated at “teaching to the tests” and the lack of whole-life care that busy-work and repetitive homework is causing.

And as for homeschooling and private school as solutions, I would ask that we in the middle and upper income ranges remember that we live *in community* with families for whom those “solutions” are not an option. If everyone who has the leisure time to worry about homework leaves the public schools, who will advocate for our nation’s children?

Barbara
December 16, 2010 at 9:20 am

I went to public school in the 1970’s. I didn’t really have any homework all through elementary school (sixth grade). Homework was special projects, not an everyday event. My parents encouraged us to read and my brother and I did so voraciously. Our knowledge of math was reinforced by using it in everyday life. Baseball taught you percentages, money taught you the decimal system. Okay, we did have some math drills to learn the multiplication tables.

While I believe my two boys go to a very good public elementary school, they (in K and third grade) both have homework. I think it is ridiculous to have homework in K, first and second, even third. We often engaged in nightly battles with my oldest over doing homework. Is this how we encourage learning?

We read with our kids everyday and have since they were born. As a result they are avid readers, both reading above grade level. This is because what we did at home. Both boys love science and history, because we go to museums, read books, do and talk about it. My kids love books and want to read and learn from them.

Something is definitely wrong. I don’t know exactly how to fix it. But a good start may be to get the best teachers, by paying them like they are the best, valuing them as a society.

Big John
December 16, 2010 at 9:21 am

I am a father of four and a grandfather of 9 and Mark Twain said it best –
“Don’t let your education get in the way of your learning”.

Many of the themes there echo Bob’s incredulity and frustration above. I agree, homework is broken. The most important things we can teach our kids is to ask why and how, again and again and again, and to follow the answers no matter where they lead. The concept that there is only one or a few “right” answers is self limiting and dangerous.

jjj
December 16, 2010 at 10:58 am

Bob,
or other that might comment,
The article mentions PARC and I am thinking Alan Kay was there?
He and some others have participated in, I believe, “constructive education”.
And computing and worldwide affordable computers aside, is not the educational methods they have explored applicable to other subjects, medium and materials?
Cheers,
jjj

Chris S.
December 16, 2010 at 12:28 pm

“Worse still, most of the homework is busywork. It teaches nothing. ”

Worst, what schools teach most of the time is wrong. I remember helping a friend help his daughter with math. Most of it was indecipherable, to him, a guy with an MS in electrical engineering, and to me with a PhD in computational electromagnetics. What little that could be deciphered was just plain wrong. The teacher’s excuse was “he didn’t do well in math in college.”

I think we’re stuck in a feedback loop. Poorly educated kids have become teachers, turning out even more poorly educated kids. It’s time to break the loop.

The people that are blaming the teachers’ unions are off base. While they most certainly add bureaucratic difficulties to school systems, teachers’ pay is not the biggest budget factor. It’s not the teachers’ greed for money that’s ruining things. Ditto on the tenure issue, since the states that don’t have teachers’ unions don’t have better students than those that do.

I agree with previous posts about the lack of intellectual curiosity in our society today. If you don’t create a culture of wanting to learn — whether it’s at home, school, wherever — then people are just doing what they’re told.

Rote memorization of dates and names didn’t help me excel in history class. But knowing the order of who came first, why one event led to another, etc., did. The memorization part provided a framework for helping me see the patterns and analysis that were easy to remember because they made sense and still affect our world today. I’ve discarded most of the dates and names from my brain now, but at the time it was part — but not all — of learning. If taught to kids in ways that spurred their curiosity and helped them understand how the world works, we’d all be a lot better off.

Joe S
December 16, 2010 at 1:38 pm

I find it interesting that when people talk about the failing schools, which I do believe are an abomination on this country, no one mentions the problem with the parents. If you are doing your child’s work or hand hold them through it, it will take longer. Most parents are afraid their child will fail because of the damage that will be done to their own ego. As a result they tend to drag a child through the work rather than teaching them the skills of time management and, dare I say it, responsibility. This is helicopter parenting at it’s worst. Allow your child to fail, that is how they learn and the earlier they know that they are responsible for their actions or in-actions the better off they will be.

Bob, something tells me you are where we were last year. Dragging our child through the work they didn’t want to do because we didn’t want her to fail. I got so fed up with the 1 hour of homework taking 3 hours that I took a step back and did some introspection. We (me and the wife) realized that it was our ego we were hurting by making sure the homework was correct and perfect and done right. Finally, I told her she can fail and be held back, it makes no difference to us, in fact I get an extra year to save for college. I also reminder her that if she is held back her friends will move to the next grade without her. I basically laid it out that she is responsible for herself.

It was a hard conversation to have but it transformed her and us. Homework when from 3 hours of parent and child argument to half and hour or an hour of piece and productivity. We help her when she has questions but she has to ask. We will review things and point out mistakes but they are not corrected on paper so the teacher knows what she does and doesn’t understand. After that conversation she did her own book report, we helped with time management skills but she did the work and got a b+. But it was her B+ and we were proud of the work and more importantly she was proud. Now, she comes home, does her work without argument and is off to play outside. When there is a report we intervene by teaching her how to manage her time. By the way, she was 9 at the time.

Try the same for your child, tell him he can fail and be left behind. If he wants to run around and terrorize the younger kids let him, but he should know that it means he will fail and that fear of failure and being left behind from his classmates will hurt him more than any punishment you can offer. In the end you may also teach time about responsibility and how to stand on your own two legs. I wish more parents did that, I firmly believe we would have a society that is more responsible, prideful and less dependent.

By the way, someone mentioned, publicly funded education through vouchers and letting the parents pick the school. I couldn’t agree with them more. Oh, and one more thing, if you school is keeping sports but canceling music, art and after school programs they are doing an injustice to the kids. Sports are very costly and only help a small amount of children. School is an institute for learning and not a place for kids who have God given talent (height, size, agility) a chance to improve their skill at a game (clubs and township sports can handle that), when more inclusive groups focused on education are dropped.

I haven’t heard of this movement to drop homework before now. I won’t comment on it, but the system we have now is one that does give homework. If you are teaching your child to no do the work you are also teaching them to skirt their responsibilities and that the rules don’t apply to them. What kind of lesson is that?

Joe S
December 16, 2010 at 5:32 pm

Sorry for some of the grammar mistakes. I was rushing out the door. Thanks to public school, I didn’t find out I had learning disabilities until my last year of college. Having trouble with grammar is one of my issues.

ronald
December 16, 2010 at 3:01 pm

Questions:

Why do we teach?
What is learning?

No ggoobly ggok, testable equations please. Or maybe we should go and understand the basics before we go of and “improve” what we do not understand.

Personal experience is always an interesting filter through which we view the world.

When I went to school (30 odd years ago) I got homework, which for the most part I just ignored. In hindsight I’d say my teachers and I had an understanding, I understood they could give me homework, they understood I had no intention of doing it. I graduated with an overall ‘B’ (70-80%). Could I have gotten a higher mark had I worked harder? yes. But frankly, I was too busy doing other things (like learning how to program a computer – which would become my profession.)

Wind the clock forward 20 years and my wife is keen to home-school. Ok, I say, expecting 6-8 hours of school a day. Ends up being more like 2. Turns out most “time” at school is unproductive – switch to a productive environment, and efficiency goes up. My ‘filter’ wanted them to be putting in the time, but when they eventually went to school at about the 4th grade, they were miles ahead of their classmates, maths and reading especially.

The school they go to doesn’t “do” homework. My ‘filter’ wants homework though, so I was concerned. (Regardless of the fact I didn’t actually _do_ it, it still seems like something they should get.) The wife, via the school, gives me some reading material on it though, and it seems kids without homework do better. Hmm – go figure…

(Aside: In (all?) studies there’s no correlation between homework and results. The best indicator of academic success is family income.)

So at their school the only homework given is where the class didn’t complete the work for the day at school. So the kids work better at school, and homework is rare. Except for reading, the kids have to read every day (anything they like). My 7 year old ploughed through 200 pages of Lord of the Rings before declaring it “boring”. The 10 year old is getting books from the library on Churchill and Hitler. Thing is, they find reading easy, so they enjoy it, so they read a LOT – fiction and non-fiction.

When it comes to education, my ‘filters of experience’ are all wrong. And selective (given that I didn’t actually _do_ it.) I’m just glad my wife is smarter than I am!

Pekka
December 17, 2010 at 12:27 am

I have to agree with some commenters (notably with Cris E): There’s no such thing as meaningless homework. The things which even the most mind-numbing tasks teach are topics like “life’s full of work”, “success don’t come easy” and “invention is 1% inspiration & 99% perspiration”.

BTW, I’m dumbfounded by the notion of categorically helping kids with homework. Who is it who needs learning?

Dr. E
December 17, 2010 at 9:56 am

I teach in a college of education. One thing we talk about is homework. Here is some research on assigned homework:
* Amount of homework should be less for younger students. Homework in general raises student achievement more in older students and less in younger students. While some homework from 2nd grade on in elementary school can be somewhat effective, homework in high school can have a dramatic effect on achievement.
* Parent Involvement in Homework should be kept to a minimum.
* Purpose of the homework should be identified and articulated. It should not be busy work.
* If homework is assigned, it should be commented on. (Too often teachers assign homework, then never go over it, and simply collect it to place a grade on it.)

Research comes from book “Classroom Instruction that Works” by Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock. ASCD Publishing. ISBN-13: 978-0131195035

John
December 17, 2010 at 11:01 am

For your son I arranged a snow day. I hope he enjoyed it.

Tom
December 17, 2010 at 2:40 pm

Can you imagine if you worked eight hours, then your boss asked you to do unpaid work at home (ya, I know, it happens, but it is ridiculous).

To me, it speaks to incompetence of the teacher if they can’t teach the kids during the allotted time.

My experience when I was in school was that the pace was slowed down to the slowed dullard, so everyone drifted off as the teacher tried to explain to him or her, then what could have been done in class was assigned as “overtime”.

I am a big believer in thinking outside of the box and the assembly line view of the world is wrong. Kids need to be kids and they need the freedom to go home, play and have fun. Kids learn most of life’s important lessons outside the classroom and time doing homework takes away from that.

The well adjusted kids that enjoy life and learn how to play are the future leaders of this country.

A woman has eaten elementary school lunches for a full year and blogged about the experience. After seeing the photos and reading the descriptions of what the kids are given to eat, I will never complain about the company cafeteria again.

More apropos to this topic, in the blog she mentions a book:

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

1) Think of teaching kids like peice-work. If the teacher can get the same amount of stuff learned by the student in less time, they should still get paid the same amount … maybe more. So much of what we hear assumes homework is a constant that just must happen. But learning is what must happen. Teachers need to find ways to do it in less time. That’s what efficiency is all about and they are highly trained professionals.

2) When we home-schooled our kids (now grown) for a while, we found lots of inefficiencies in the schools. For example, a bathroom break for 20 4th graders takes 20 minutes out of everyones day. When there is only one kid at home, 2-3 minutes max. I’m pretty sure that allowing more than three 7th or 8th graders to be in the same room is illegal. (Sort of like political dissidents.)

3) Looking at what my teacher relatives do now and did just a few years ago, the amount of paperwork has increased tremendously. This is particularly true for schools with lots of poor students. (Read “poor” either way.) The teacher is expected to do everything they used to do PLUS fill out all the paperwork. Average teachers around here work 12 hours a day during the school year.

4) Plus, if teachers were the sort of people who really liked filling out paperwork, they would have gotten jobs at insurance companies or bureaucracies coming out of college. Instead, they are pure people-people. That’s what they like to do and are good at–interact with people … small people in this case. Nothing fails like assigning tasks to people when they aren’t good at them.

Lawrence
December 17, 2010 at 11:41 pm

Your old school district recently avoided self destruction twice, thanks to a COW history dept classmate of yours. In fact he moved into your old district about the same time you moved out. He is the most informed person I know on education, particularly debunking the bologna that’s getting trumpeted today.

Education has been made convoluted by a lot of people who don’t really know education, but try to take the lead anyway, usually appointed or recomended by more people who don’t know.

Joel Klein? Michelle Rhee? Lee in his post above? Teach for America kids out of school?

The problem is that being “smart” doesn’t mean you understand education, teaching, learning, etc.

If I want to try a new method with my vegetable gardens, or trouble shoot and creatively fix a problem with my car, I don’t go to the Harvard lawyer, or the Goldman financial analyst. Sure they are likely intelligent people, but what do they know? For some reason when you ask someone who doesn’t know about cars to speak on it they usually say “well I don’t really have much experience with…”. But ask them about education, and they will likely have lots to say. They probably assume that just because they were once a student (maybe a good one), than that qualifies them to speak as though they are experienced. Unfortunately it does not. Just like many great pro sports atheletes can’t coach to save their lives.

Lee seems like a great example. Anyone who starts off by talking about educating children like peice-work can’t be leading the way in education.

I have recieved my bachelors in Pyschology, and 8 months away from finishing my masters in education & special education. I have 150 hours in SpED and Gen Ed and substitute teach. I grew up my entire life as a son the two intelligent, driven, outspoken teachers and even I know I am not qualified to be a leader of the educational system (though obviously more qualified then Rhee and Klein, unless degrees in Law, Government, and Public policy fit right in with educating children and adolescents)

There is so much to know, understand, and experience in education that the idea that people like Klein and Rhee are leading the way is a complete farce.

You should have also told those librarians to stick to the dewey decimal system.
Homework isn’t good or bad based on age, it is good or bad based on what the heck it is. It is another clear example of people who don’t understand education, thinking that they do. Did the librarians think that a 4 year old’s nuerons shut down after 3pm, or don’t like stimulation?

Holy Canoli it is 2:30am, now I am getting back to my masters work.

ps Lee, reducing the time covering material would be a terrible idea, cognitively and educationally. In the first place, time is positively correlated with memory. It isn’t the quicker you cover it the better its in there. If you are programing them single lines of code until all code is in there, you say its best not to take more time to connect these things, construct a deeper understanding?

Maxim Nitsche
December 18, 2010 at 1:01 am

You compare the US and Germany. Why don’t you use a better example: France.I understand your point and I think you’re absolutly right but the French schoolsystem is way harder than the US’ one.From 6th to 9th grade your day starts at 8AM and finishes at 4PM(plus homework. approximatly 2 hours). But from 10th grade on your day starts at 8AM and finishes at 6PM (plus 2,5 hours of homework).
The next point is that from 11th grade on, every Friday you have 4 hours of test (subjects altern) at the end of the Day. In 12th grade even 5 hours if the Subjekt is German.
The education ministers explanation is: “Ca les prépare pour le bac”
Or in english thats the way they get prepared for the Bac.
Now the question is:”when do we have free time to do things with your Friends?”
The answer is pretty cruel:”You don’t have any!”

As you just said: we are getting prepared for Test but for nothing else coming after.I am actually in 11th grade on a French and German school.
So you might say that I am not objective.I tryed to be As much As I could.

Ronc
December 18, 2010 at 2:46 pm

Thanks to your comment, I have gained more respect for France. Previously, all I could give them credit for was having the common sense to solve their energy problem so they can move on to other things. Now I see they also have the common sense to actually value education. Consider yourself lucky. (By the way, you may want to add a spell checker to your browser; otherwise your English is very good.)

Steven
December 18, 2010 at 6:48 am

I’ve seen all the same things with my kids in their schools.
Homework that is excessive and beyond grade level.
And–all too often–pointless.

Mr. Peepers
December 19, 2010 at 1:36 pm

Channing? Whatever happened to names like Bill, Bob, Jim, and Tom? Or even Mark?

The purpose of homework is to teach students the habit of learning outside the classroom in an unstructured environment. The ability to do this is what segregates the best students in college and beyond, and the majority of experts in any field become experts because they are good at it. They are autodidacts.

I am certain there are many bad teachers who assign useless homework – but the existence of bad teachers is not an argument that learning is the exclusive domain of the classroom.

As with so many big issues, the important question isn’t whether more or less is better. The important question is: what is the right amount?

My theory is simple, Politicians do what they do to actually keep us stupid! “Just keep buying products and watching fake news and we can stay in office forever while milking you dry!” Just a theory.

BKDad
December 20, 2010 at 9:44 am

My wife happens to be a school teacher. She also happens to think that elementary schools give those kids too much homework. The kids are missing out on too many important educational activities that is being replaced by homework.

Huh?

For example, she decided that kids don’t really learn well by listening to teachers. At least they don’t as well as they used to 20 years ago. So, she started to play the students old time radio programs during times when they weren’t all scheduled to the hilt. These are programs like Jack Benny, the Green Hornet, the Lone Ranger, and so on. What did she find out? The kids actually liked doing this, and because they had to listen to get what was going on, they learned a skill that translated to their other subjects. These are sixth graders, mind you.

So, she thought that perhaps listening to foreign shortwave radio stations, now streaming on the internet, would be a more updated way to teach listening skills. Outlets like the BBC, Deutsche Welle, and CBC all have programs that are just plain entertainment, some oriented toward kids. What did she find out? That the parents were panic stricken about what their kids might learn. That one went out the window….

Back when state-wide standardized testing came into play, there was a suggestion that “teaching to the test” might be a good idea. But it was only a suggestion. So, instead of doing that, she worked with the kids on how to solve problems. They all took the tests without ever getting prompted on the test contents. The next school year, when the results came out, her class was head and shoulders above the rest in terms of test scores. So what happened? Some high level administrators came by to have a nice little talk to her. It seems that they were unhappy with what she had done. She was wrecking the entire program, so they said; stop it now! Keep in mind that this was not the union or other teachers telling her that. It was the administration.

Kids are being treated like employees in modern companies run by MBAs. Everyone and everything is fungible. Parents act much the same way in many cases. Buy your kid the latest video games or whatever, and keep them occupied enough so that you can pursue your own interests. Push the kids into activities that might be a source of pride or bragging rights for the parent, not the kid.

This is all pretty lame. As my wife has said to many parents, she has never once had Harvard, MIT, Yale, or any college contact her about how some kid did in the sixth grade.

Ronc
December 20, 2010 at 3:10 pm

Perhaps if you named names someone will be able to do something about it. At least try wikileaks.

Robert Squitieri
December 20, 2010 at 6:03 pm

Oh my did you hit a nerve here.

Did you ever notice that the testing for ” no child left behind ” was made by “TEACHERS”

Ever notice who hates giving these tests “TEACHERS”

I have always felt the way tests are given is wrong. You would think by now “TEACHERS” could figure out a way to give a test to show you actually know the material without always driving you nuts about taking a TEST.

If you were to ask me about Home Work I hated it. Did not do much. If you ask me if I remember any homework I ever did in 17 years of schooling the answer is NO except for the 2 research papers I had to do to get my BS in Aeronautics. I remember one of them fairly well and the other one was just hard.

I of course thought my generation would do something to fix education in this country. We did not.

My best suggestion for education is; if it is not available on an IPad or Iphone this country as a whole will not move education forward. I BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR A HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION WILL FIT IN A IPHONE. ( with a lot of room to spare?)

I firmly believe we need to work on making this happen. Why? Does every kid have a phone. YES THEY DO. Even the poorest sections of town almost everyone has a cell phone. NOW if the poorest kid and the richest kid can get a good education on the cell phone we might actually get somewhere. I say we load up the cell phones with everything they need to know for K thru 12 in the phone and give it to all the kids in all the schools. Probably the cheapest most effective thing we could do.

The benefits to some kid in the worst section of town getting picked on for carrying books will never get picked on for carrying an IPHONE. If everyone had one they would be no benefit in stealing one either. We as a country screw 40 to 50 percent of the kids in the large cities out of a high school education. This is wrong. It also makes some very good criminals out them. We never catch these guys. If we just get half of these kids back on track with an IPHONE and get more of the smart ones to actually help society we would be so much better off.

Oh yea, my teacher sucks. With the IPHONE just watch the same class from a good teacher. Even while in class with the “bad teacher”

Now, I am here to tell you there is not a mother in the world who would not pay 99 cents to itunes for their kids to see what ever their kid needs to know from a good teacher.

School books is another rip off. Let the publishers put the stuff on I tunes and let them get their money that way. I would also suggest NINTENDO be hired to put some of these courses together so it would actually be fun to learn something. If they have to interact to learn it, they would actually learn it. Even your kid would do that homework.

Yes this could have the potential of making Steve Jobs way to rich. Small price to pay for an educated country. If Steve thought this was important enough to work on, yes we would be making real progress.

Bob

Cris E
December 21, 2010 at 9:05 am

Maybe all the info you need for an education will fit on a thumb drive, but that’s not how kids learn. When you say you’d like to just watch a “good” teacher go over the material you need to acknowledge that what makes her a good teacher is the ability to see if the material is sinking in and adjusting her approach if it is not. If saying it right was the biggest problem we would have put *that* in the books years ago and been done.

Kids learn differently: some learn visually, some must hear things, other must write or fiddle with concepts before they register. Why there are so many approaches (good and bad) to teaching math or how to read? Arithmetic and spelling haven’t changed much in the past hundred years, so it must be that people think there’s a better way to do this. Choosing One True Method to put in movie form rather than book form isn’t much better or different than what’s happening today, except without a teacher to keep order when bored kids start screwing around.

Another big part of education is the role of group discussion, and letting kids watch a topic emerge amidst the ebb and flow of challenge and response. Not everything is memorization or mechanical processing, and it is this part of education that seems to be what most people are missing in today’s classroom and what might be worst-suited to iPads.

There’s a place for smart use of technology in the classroom, and there’s a place for homework, but mostly there’s still a place for someone to lead kids through the material and offer various ways to understanding. I think we’d all be better served not taking a simplistic silver bullet approach to the problem, as I think that’s the sort of thinking that got us chasing after test scores in the first place.

Ronc
December 21, 2010 at 2:39 pm

Thanks. Well said. No magic bullet. Just good students, teachers, parents, and administrators.

Matt
December 21, 2010 at 6:56 pm

I beg to differ, NCLB was not created by Teachers. NCLB was a way to measure whether or not the Federal gov’t is getting it’s money’s worth. Teachers abhor the concept of “teaching to the test”. Talk to any teacher and they will tell you that they hate NCLB and what it’s done to teaching. The science and research are against high stakes testing. But it’s the simplest and easiest way to measure a school’s success for the public.

Being a teacher myself, and a long time reader of this column regardless where it’s been hosted, we’re discussing not giving homework or not grading it. The vast majority of our students just passively don’t do it. However, as was mentioned earlier, the point of homework isn’t always content, but the concept of being responsible and accountable.

The education system in the United States need to change. It was designed to develop citizens, farmers and factory workers in an agrarian economy. The United States is a long way’s from the late 1800’s. We need to understand that technology impacts how kids learn today. We need to understand that today’s generation learns significantly different than our generation or depending upon your age, your parents generation. We need to make better use of our time and be more flexible with out teaching day and teaching calendar. The 9 – 9.5 months of school followed by 2.5 – 3 months off, has to change. We’re losing the education race by most measures and unless we change and adapt our ability to compete globally will be affected.

The change is inevitable, and it will be bumpy and painful.

Bob, I know you live in N.C., not because I’ve been stalking you… and N.C. is making some positive changes, but one of the things that has happened with NCLB is that curriculum is being pushed farther down the grades. For example, in Minnesota, 5th, 6th & 7th graders are being taught algebra, even though cognitive research states most are not ready for it. I’m guessing that N.C., is doing the same thing, as NCLB has taken hold, and states have created “STANDARDS”, they’ve been put in effect regardless of research and so teachers are mandated to cover “X” material before the test(s). So, while I have always been against giving a lot of homework, I’m guessing that your son’s elementary teacher are feeling squeezed by the dreaded “Content v. Testing v. Time” conundrum.

Ronc
December 22, 2010 at 12:35 am

“The vast majority of our students just passively don’t do it.” That’s shocking to me. It should be graded and the HW grade average should count for at least 1/3 of the final grade. Teachers should also give closed book quizzes to make sure the HW that was handed it corresponds with the knowledge of the student handing it in.

buck
December 20, 2010 at 7:44 pm

reminds me of that Newsweek article that i probably first saw referenced here but have the mendacity not to ascertain for definite attribute

When faculty of a major Chinese university asked [Professor Jonathan] Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’ “

Home school. It worked for centuries and it still works today. I’m the father of four home-schooled children. Neither my wife nor myself have a degree. One of my daughters reads at above average levels, one of them excels at math (no pun intended), the youngest just entered kindergarten and is learning to read not finger paint. Two of my children are “special needs” (autistic and aspergers) so their education is individualized rather than sticking them in the “special” class where they learn nothing.

Parents are ultimately responsible for the education of their children and those who choose to shuffle off their kids to the government indoctrination centers shouldn’t be surprised that they’re learning Heather has two mommies and two plus two can equal five if you really feel strongly about it.

Private school are expensive but you get what you pay for and some areas offer vouchers so *your* tax dollars can be used to educate *your* children in a place where they actually receive an education.

My wife and I decided to home school our children before we were married, which was almost three years before our first child was born. Yes it’s a lot of work, yes it is overwhelming at times. But the payoff is well worth it, seeing my dyslexic son improve his spelling three grade levels in one year or seeing my middle daughter complete the first grade math book in three months and move on to second grade, both with HUGE smiles and a sense of accomplishment. That’s the payoff and I highly recommend it to everyone reading this.

He has been on a mission to end homework and has written several books on the topic.

Heikki Ketola
January 17, 2011 at 9:38 pm

How about Finland? Finland ranks at the top of most international comparisons.
Kids start school in fall of the year of their 7th birthday. Preschools are for playing, not for learning anything. School year is one of the shortest anywhere. Very little homework. Not much testing, I think there is a test every 2 years, and it is used mainly for getting an idea how the school is doing, but the test results are more or less for the school to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong.
What’s the big deal? Teachers have to have Master’s Degrees in the topic they teach. Social standing of a teacher is high (nobody snickers when you tell that you are a teacher). Teachers come from the top third of the Master’s Degree graduates. Teachers’ pay is ok but not especially high.

And at the end of the high school there is the baccalauréat exam -one exam all students take that year. No multiple choices questions -you have to write down and justify your answer.

Teachers have to have Master’s Degrees in the topic they teach. Social standing of a teacher is high (nobody snickers when you tell that you are a teacher). Teachers come from the top third of the Master’s Degree graduates. Teachers’ pay is ok but not especially high.